Korchmin, Vasily Dmitrievich

In his youth, Vasily Korchmin, thanks to stepfather I. Sumarokov (he rescued Alexei Mikhailovich during a bear hunt and was the king's bedroom steward ^[2] ) and father-in-law A. Timofeev (who was in the closest circle of the ruling princess Sofia) ^[3] the courtyard as steward of Queen Praskovya Fedorovna . In 1691 he was taken to the comic troops of the young Peter I.

As a volunteer in the Great Embassy , he studied abroad (1697–1698) in the military and mathematical sciences ^[4] , first (from 8 (18) June 1697) in Königsberg , then in Berlin (at least until autumn 1698). ^[5] ).

In 1694, Peter I established a bombardir company at the Preobrazhensky regiment , which included Vasily Korchmin. It was the most elite unit in the Russian army, Peter I personally commanded the company. After training abroad, Korchmin became a sergeant of a bombarding company, and from 1713 he became its de facto commander.

Guns, rockets, flamethrowers

Korchmin is the designer of new types of guns and shells.

• Korchmin proposed a new design of a 6-pound copper mortar, which was intended to arm the grenadier and dragoon regiments in order to enhance the gunfire of infantry and cavalry. In 1706, 20 such mortars were cast and sent to Smolensk for testing.
• In 1706, Korchmin developed a 3-pound regimental cannon with two 6-pound mortars on one gun carriage, which increased the firepower and reduced the vulnerability of artillery during reloading.
• In 1707, Jacob Bruce and Vasily Korchmin created a new “long” half-pole howitzer for equipping horse artillery, which was the predecessor of the Russian unicorn .
• In 1711, Korchmin proposed to equip new warships with incandescent furnaces for cannonballs. They, according to his thoughts, should have set fire to wooden enemy ships better.

Korchmin is one of the fathers of the national rocket science.

• In Moscow in January 1707 , in the face of a real threat of attack by Swedish troops on the capital, a signal rocket was tested, rising to a height of 1 km, which was put into service in the Russian army (and used in it for almost two centuries).
• Korchmin is the inventor of combat missiles ^[6] , he proposed the design of rocket launchers for firing from frigates and battleships with incendiary missiles.
• Korchmin, along with Skornyakov-Pisarev, wrote notes on making rockets, which were used by many generations of Russian gunners and pyrotechnics.

Korchmin is the inventor of the flamethrower .

• For the first time in the world practice of the New Time, he armed Russian ships with flamethrower tubes designed by him and, together with Peter I, developed a manual for their use, which has come down to our days. ^[7]

Ships and naval artillery

Korchmin took an active part in the creation of the Navy.

In September 1703, Korchmin took part in transporting new ships from the Olonetsky shipyard to the newly founded Petersburg. The expedition was headed by Peter the Great himself on the ship “Standart”, Korchmin was on the “Call of Dragal” cruiser (there were 10 ships in all). On the way to Shlisselburg, the flagship ship "Standart" ran aground on Lake Ladoga. The king moved to another ship, and Vasily Korchmina and Gavrila Kobylin were entrusted to shoot the Standart from the bank, which they successfully managed.

Korchmin was engaged in the combat equipment of the main Peter ships. In 1703, he managed to construct a plutong (battery) of four or five galley guns, the power of which was one and a half times more than on foreign ships of the same class. ^[8] Two 32-gun frigates - LandSaw and St. Yaks "were equipped with incendiary rockets and flamethrower tubes.

Fireworks

Korchmin was the chief Peter pyrotechnist and organizer of grandiose festive fireworks ("allegorical enchanting theaters") in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Moscow, Korchmina had a pyrotechnic laboratory in Preobrazhensky, in which different types of missiles and other pyrotechnics were prepared. In 1701, Comrade Korchmina, Ivan Alekseev, died from burns in the laboratory.

It is reliably known that the New Year's fireworks in Moscow were held in 1700, 1702-1710 and in 1723; and in Petersburg in 1711, 1712, 1714-1716, 1718-1721, 1724, 1725.

In particular, in Moscow Korchminy organized the following performances:

• the first fireworks on the New 1700th year;
• fireworks of January 1 (12), 1704 “in honor of the new victories of the Russians in the liberated Izhora land” ;
• Grand New Year's fireworks, arranged on the evening of January 1 (12), 1710 (depicting allegorically the events of the period of the Northern War, which ended in 1709 with a brilliant Poltava battle ).

In St. Petersburg, Korchmin was the organizer of the most ambitious two-hour fireworks produced on October 22 ( November 3 ), 1721 to mark the end of the Northern War and the declaration of Peter I as emperor. For his training in the subordination of Korchmina, there was a specially created “laboratory for writing fireworks” , in which 140 people worked for a month. ^[9]

Korchmin was engaged in the arrangement of fireworks, at least until 1727 , when he was replaced by B. X. von Munnich as the main fireworker.

Fortification

Korchmin was involved in the fortification of many cities and fortresses ( Novgorod in 1701 , St. Petersburg from 1703 , Bryansk in 1706 , Moscow in 1707 , Sevsk in 1708–1709, Helsingfors ( Helsinki ) in 1713 , Kronstadt in the 1720s, etc. .).

Defense of St. Petersburg (since 1703)

The defense of St. Petersburg Korchmin engaged from the first day of the founding of the northern capital. The Korchmina battery, located on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island , successfully defended Petersburg under construction from the sea invasion of the Swedes.

From 1720, Peter I commissioned Korchmina to direct the artillery (and therefore the fortification) of the Kronslot fortress (Kronstadt). ^[10] And it was precisely in these years that a serious strengthening of the strength of the fortress began: the forts “ Risbank ” and “ Citadel ” were built, on the island of Kotlin - the fortress of Alexander Nevsky. ^[eleven]

The defensive line Smolensk - Bryansk (1706-1707, 1709).

In 1706 , on the occasion of the threatened invasion of the Swedes, Korchmin led the construction of large-scale defensive structures on the distant approaches to Moscow.

He was given the task of building a defensive line “from Smolensk to Bryansk and further to the steppes to make notches in forests 150 steps wide, to cut all small roads to 300 sazhen, and to make large ravels with palisades and so on. Behind the line, make roads for the convenience of her defense. ”

Bryansk as a convenient defensive point and food reserve army, was strengthened. Bryansk fortress was brought to combat readiness, while it additionally surrounded by shafts. To strengthen Bryansk, the Resurrection Women's Monastery was abolished and broken (its inhabitants were transferred to the Pesotsky Monastery, after which the monks were moved from there to the Bryansk Petropavlovsk Convent).

The Defense of Moscow (1707)

In May 1707, Korchmin arrived in Moscow. Peter the Great "ordered him in Moscow to be in charge of all the artillery and with it what is there, and to arrange according to his understanding, as well as be obedient to them . "

Korchmin began to scale up the defense of the center of Moscow ( China-City and the Kremlin ). Earthen ramparts with deep moats in front of them (including Red Square) were piled in front of the Kremlin wall and fortified with bastions (traces of which were preserved at the Middle Arsenal and Armory Towers). ^{[12] The} loops of the towers were piled up to install heavy cannons ^[13] .

For military reasons, close passages were closed around the Kremlin, many residential buildings (including some churches) were demolished, Kharcheva and Okhotny ranks moved, Aptekarsky garden was moved to a new place, and all grain stocks were brought to the Kremlin, where it was kept trade. ^[14] Korchmin also began disassembling the Comedian Chorominy, Moscow’s first public theater, which stood on the site of the Historical Museum.

Pontoons

In 1712, on the outskirts of the village of Voznesenskoye (later Korchmino), on the banks of the Neva River, fed to VD Korchmin, the first pontoon-bridge company in Russia, numbering 36, was armed with Dutch-made tin pontoons. ^[15]

Waterway systems

By orders of Peter I, Korchmin dealt with the creation of waterways from the Volga to Novgorod , St. Petersburg and Moscow .

The first task that Peter I set for Korchmin in 1701 was to find a waterway from Moscow to Novgorod. And immediately Korchmin groped for the right decision, in a letter dated October 5, 1701, he wrote that he “invented a safe place to the waterway to Novgorod” : across the mouth of the Dubna River and the Sestra River. Later, in 1722, Vilim Gennin used the surveys of Korchmin, whom Peter I commissioned to develop an already detailed project of the Volga-Moscow waterway. But this project was implemented only a hundred years after the construction of the Moscow (Catherine) Canal , which connected the Istra and Sister rivers. Shortly thereafter, the Moscow-Petersburg railway was built, and the water system competing with it fell into disrepair. And only the channel to them. Moscow , built in 1937 , fully realized the dream of Peter the Great.

Korchmin was the first builder of the waterway from the Volga to the Baltic Sea, later called the Mariinsky Water System , and then the Volga-Baltic Canal . In 1710, the Englishman Perry, who studied this question, presented to Peter I a report on the work done and from the three options examined showed that the most profitable option is the waterway through the rivers Kovzha and Vytegra . In 1711, Peter I personally visited the Vyshegorsk region and inspected the places where the canal should pass. The Englishman, who was commissioned to start work, who did not achieve the salary due to him, resigned and went home to England, and V. Korchmin began to carry out the project together with a group of Dutch masters. But the war with Sweden, which resumed in early 1713, forced Peter to withdraw Korchmina into the army and the project was frozen ... until the end of the XVIII century.

Korchmin also took an active part in the improvement of the Vyshnevolotsk water system . With the royal decree of May 15 (26), 1712, Lieutenant V. Korchmin and the master of the sluice affairs, J. Perry were sent to the Novgorod district on the Msta river to “see if it was possible to be gateways on other rivers or places” . Almost simultaneously, the clearing of the stones of the Msta riverbed began. In addition, Korchmin dealt with the question of connecting the Neva and Volkhov basins by a canal (through the tributaries of the Tosna and Tigoda).

And in 1719, he was sent to study the canal from the Mologa River to the Msta River and to describe the Volga, Mologa and Tvertsy.

The first reconnaissance mission, Peter I, commissioned Korchmina while he was studying in Berlin in 1698 . He was instructed to find out what salary the Germans received from military officers from generals to soldiers, inclusive, with which Korchmin coped well, sending Peter a detailed painting in a letter of March 29, 1698 .

In March 1700, under the pretext of buying cannons, Korchmin was sent to Narva , where he was to learn about the state of the fortress of Narva , as well as of Noteburg (the fortress of Oreshek ).

Peter I wrote ( March 2, 1700 ) about this to Admiral Golovin: “And now for those cannons you went Korchmina to try them and buy a few; and meanwhile punish him so that he looks after the city and the places around; also, if it is possible for him to find a case so that he has been to Oreshek; and bude into it is impossible, although near it. And there is a need for space here: a channel from Lake Ladoga to the sea (look at the maps), and it is necessary for the sake of delaying the proceeds. ” On March 7, 1700, the ambassadorial order for sending Korchmin to Narva was determined, and on March 9, Korchmin set off on his way. He bought 1000 efimki for the purchase of guns.

On September 12, 1713, Peter I, with a nominal decree, sent Korchmin to inspect the Swedish fortress of Nyslot to study its fortification, in order to estimate the required number of cannons and monitors for its successful capture, and “inquire whether there is a waterway to its place from Vyborg or from Karelia, what courts . " As a combat cover, Korchmina was accompanied by a dragoon regiment of 150 men.

Listed below are battles, sieges, campaigns, about the participation in which V. Korchmina (usually, as the leader of part or all of the artillery and siege works) there is any information.

• The first siege of Narva (1700)

During the siege, Korchmin led the work against the fortress of Ivangorod ("led aproshi ").

• Battle of Erestfer (1701)

On December 29, 1701, the battle of the Russian troops with the Swedish corps near Erestfer took place. The main role was played by Russian artillery in this battle. When the Swedes began to close the Russian infantry, scorer Vasily Korchmin, who commanded the artillery of the Russian detachment, put his gunners on horses, rushed with guns to the battlefield and ordered to open fire on the Swedes with a canister immediately. By this he, as Peter I wrote, “led the enemy into confusion.” “Confusion” was fair: about 3 thousand people were killed and wounded from the seven-thousand Swedish corps, 350 Swedes surrendered, 4 Swedish cannons and 8 banners were captured. ^[sixteen]

• Battle of Gummelshof (1702)
• The Siege of Noteburg (1702)
• The Siege of Nietzschean (1703)
• The second siege of Narva (1704)
• The Siege of Mitawa (1705)

On August 14, 1705, Russian troops embarked under the walls of the castle of Mitau . But the first days of the siege was conducted poorly, for the siege artillery, which V. Korchmin transported from under Polotsk , was not yet delivered. Because of the thaw, the first guns were delivered only on 29 August. On September 2, the bombardment of the Mitava Castle began, and on September 4, he capitulated.

The Siege of Bauska (1705)

From Mitawa, Major von Kerchen and Lieutenant Commander Korchmin were sent to Bausk , with a command to attack him. The siege did not last long. On September 15, 1705, the city surrendered almost without a fight and without any loss from our side. (Although, as Korchmin wrote to the king, “the fortification at Bauska is better than Mitava and the fortress is much worse” ).

• Battle of Poltava (1709)
• The Take of Vyborg (1710)
• Prut trip (1711)
• Stettin's capture (1713)
• Siege of Nashloth (1714)

After the preliminary reconnaissance of the fortress by Korchmina in the autumn of 1713, the siege of Neyshlot began in June 1714. The leadership of the siege was entrusted to Korchmina ^[17] . After careful preparation, the fortress was subjected to many days of powerful bombardment of the fortress walls until a breach was formed in one of them. Shortly thereafter, on July 29 (August 9), 1714, the Swedes capitulated. Such a brilliant capture of the impregnable fortress was immortalized by an enormous size with a commemorative medal of 1714. On the rim of the medal it was written "Fortress Neyshlos weakened by the hand of Petrov." On the medal was a battery of cannons, which have an officer with a palenik in his hand. There is an assumption ^[18] that this is depicted by V. Korchmin and this is the only image that has come down to us.

• Persian campaign (1722-1723)

In 1722-1723 Korchmin participated in the Persian campaign as a key position as Quartermaster General. According to the military regulations, developed under the direct supervision of Peter the Great, the rank of quartermaster-general "requires a wise, sensible and skillful person." "He should establish campaigns, camps both on the occasion of fortification and retrospectives , and have oversight on them ... And if such a quartermaster general and artillery mean it , he can also be in command on the occasion."

In 1707, Peter I issued a personal decree on the collection, “from priests and deacons,” of a tax in the form of horses, which the army badly needed. The horse was taken from a certain number of courtyards in the parish (from 150 to 300). Soon the nature was actually replaced by a monetary tax (from 12 to 15 rubles instead of a horse). In the following provinces from some cities and counties, Korchmin was responsible for collecting this tax: Moscow, Smolensk, Kiev, Kazan, Azov and Voronezh. ^[nineteen]

• Korchmin owned potash and small-scale (resin) plants in Roslavl district , which in 1709 were burned by the Swedes. ^[20]
• In 1707, in Starodub, he organized "a plow, iron and leather factory and other similar projects, of which my intention was to maintain a whole regiment" (Korchmin). But in his absence, "more than fifty planes were sunk by mockery and the plant was burnt." ^[21]
• In the Bryansk district, Korchmina also had hemp plants (perhaps this is “other things” in Starodub, see above), but “from a military case, plants and hemp are later on” ^[22] .
• In 1719, Korchmin bought land for his capital in the Putivl district (in the village of Zvanny and Glushkovo ) and, together with his companion Dubrovsky, built a cloth manufactory on this land in 1719-1722 (in RGADA it is listed as Putivl cloth manufacture VD Korchmina) . Manufactory was the main supplier of cloth for the army and navy. This is one of the oldest and largest (at one time) factories in Russia, existing to this day as the Glushkovsky cloth factory ^[23] ( Glushkovo , Kursk region).
• He owned a mill on the Oka, for which he had many years of litigation ^[24] .
• In the spring of 1707, Korchmin, engaged in the defense of Bryansk , bought horses here to complete the Preobrazhensky regiment .

• Order of sv. Alexander Nevsky (1 (12) January 1728).

• “The detina does not seem to be stupid, and the secret can be taken down” (as Peter I in March 1700 characterized Korchmin before sending him in reconnaissance to Narva and Nut).
• “Korchmin was lean and often smoked tobacco” (from the memories of old Pakhoma)
• Vasily Korchmin was among 19 dignitaries (including 4 spiritual ones), who drafted and signed the Manifesto on the accession of Empress Catherine I to the throne.
• The rank of Army Major General Vasiliy Korchmin was received on November 24 (December 5), 1726, on the day of the namesake of Catherine I.

Grandfather - Ivan Andreevich Korchmin (died 1643, Moscow ) ^[25] . In the 1620s, he received a patrimony in the Viziuzhsky volost in Kineshma district . Ivan Korchmina had three sons Vasily, Nikita and Dmitry.

Vasily Ivanovich Korchmin during the Russian-Swedish war died in 1656 near Dinaburg . Apparently, the son of Dmitry Ivanovich Korchmin was named after Vasily in honor of the deceased uncle.

Vasiliy Ivanovich Korchmin first owned the Vichuga patrimony, and brother Nikita, as hopeless at that time, in 1649 received from the Tsar the Zakhar'ino estate ^[26] near Sergiev Posad . After the death of V. I. Korchmina, Nikita Korchmin also began to own the vichugsky patrimony. In 1665, Nikita Korchmin divided the Zakharyino estate near Moscow with his brother Dmitry Ivanovich Korchmin (d. 1 (11) January 1671, Moscow) ^[25] . In 1673, his widow Catherine and her son Vasily owned half the village (she soon married Ivan Sumorokov ^[27] ). In 1704, Vasily Dmitrievich Korchmin built a wooden church of the Savior in Zakharyino.

Nikita Ivanovich Korchmin (d. 1700, Moscow, 80 years old) ^[25] - “I was in unceasing services from childhood, and at least a short time was ordered by His Majesty in German and other states” (from the petition of V. D. Korchmina ), His wife Solomonida Nikitichna, urozh. Chaplin, died in 1677 ^[28]

After the death of his uncle, Vasily Dmitrievich Korchmin (p. Khrenovo with villages) already owned the patrimonial patrimony ^[29] , in early 1716, after years of litigation, the village of Morozovo of Vichyuzhsky volost was transferred to Korchmin’s many years of litigation. ^[30] After the disgrace of Danila Tatishchev (in 1718), his patrimony (the village of Vichuga ) was transferred to Vasiliy Korchmina ^[31] . In 1720, on the Volga bank near Plyos, Vasily Korchmin buys a mustache for 2,000 rubles. Khmelnytsya ( Chaliapin estate at the beginning of the 20th century) and Tatishchevo with villages. ^[32] He also owned the village of Dyudyakovo ^[33] on the ancient road from Vichuga to Plyos . Thus, Vasiliy Korchmin owned vast lands in Vichuga krai and its immediate environs. In 1723 he built a new wooden church in the village. Sucks instead of emaciated. ^[34]

The Petrovsky decree of January 23, 1712 expressly prohibited the transfer of patrimonies not to direct relatives in the male line, but to transfer in a straight line to the female, but no further than granddaughters, and in the absence of the latter, to declare the estate outfired and return to the treasury. Vasily Korchmin was childless and immediately after his death, by decree of September 1 (12), 1729, the Korchmina’s estates were confiscated. In 1742 , under Elizabeth Petrovna , the confiscated estates were returned to Korchmina’s widow.

Vasily Korchmin was married at least twice: the first wife was the daughter of Artamon Timofeev, deacon of the Order of the Grand Palace; second wife's name was Irina Vladimirovna .

• Village Alafevo Bezhetskogo County ^[35]
• dd Kuzovlevo, Sidorovo and Varlamov in the Vologda district ^[36]
• with. Specific Uty in the Bryansk district ^[37]
• Village Korchmino (now p. Pontonny in the composition of St. Petersburg) ^[15]
• patrimony in Glushkovo ^[38]

• Chambers Korchmina (1719-1732, architect D. Trezzini ) in St. Petersburg (stood on the site of the Novo-Mikhailovsky Palace , Dvortsovaya Embankment, 18, Millionnaya Str. 19) ^[39] .

“A.M. Cherkassky ’s Polats were built on the site of V. D. Karchmin’s Polat here. It is possible that these „polats of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky regiment of the Maeor Vasily Dmitrievich Karchmin“, which stood until 1732, were the first building in the Kamennaya Embankment of the Millionth Line ” ( Bogdanov A.I. Description of St. Petersburg, ⁴⁰ , manuscript 1751, p. 52)

• Korchmin also owned another part of the urban land in St. Petersburg (near house 10 on Tchaikovsky Street ) ^[41] .
• City estate in Moscow in the Vorontsov field (near the river Yauza)
• "Yard place" at the Sukharev Tower, donated in 1735 for the construction of an artillery regimental yard. ^[42] It is possible that the Korchmins ancestral town estate was located in the Sukharev Tower area, as the father, grandfather, and uncle of Vasily Korchmin were buried near these places, at the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God on Malaya Dmitrovka, in Uspensky Lane. ^[25]

• Monument to striker Vasily Korchmina in St. Petersburg on Vasilyevsky Island (sculptors Lukyanov G.V., Sergeev SV, 2003).
• Memorial them. V.D. Korchmina in p. Pontonny (St. Petersburg).

Korchmin in place names

• Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg, - according to legend, named for Vasily Korchmina.
• Korchmino - estate (from 1712) V.D. Korchmina on r. Neva (now p. Pontonny, the name Korchmino is preserved in the name of one of the townships of the village); also r. Korchminka flowing here.